Red Room Audio has launched its new Traveler Series, an ongoing collection of boutique sample libraries featuring traditional world instruments faithfully recorded on location from destinations around the globe.
Traveler Series libraries focus on delivering a genuine purity that can only be captured where the instrument and musical style originated, preserving its true character and history.
We seek out a region’s most skilled and renowned performers; amazing folks with stories and bloodlines who live and breathe traditional provincial music. We leave with an education and appreciation for their culture and the role these beautiful instruments serve (as well as a tale or two of our own). We hope our Traveler Series adds an authentic native spirit to your music.
The first three libraries are recorded in Dublin, Ireland and Kentucky in the United States of America.
Bluegrass Fiddle is a deep-sampled fiddle library for recorded in Kentucky with over 25 standard articulations and traditional ornaments, plus Phrases & FX.
Bluegrass fiddling is a distinctive American style characterized by bold, bluesy improvisation, off-beat “chopping”, and sophisticated use of double stops and old-time bowing patterns. Notes are often slid into, a technique seldom used in Celtic styles.
Bluegrass fiddlers tend to ignore the rules that violinists follow: they hold the fiddle the “wrong” way and often don’t use the chin & shoulder rests.
Celtic Fiddle was recorded in Dublin, Ireland. It features 20 standard articulations and traditional ornaments, plus Phrases & FX.
The fiddle is one of the most important instruments in Celtic music. The fiddle itself is identical to the violin, however it is played differently in widely varying regional styles.
Compared to classical violin, Celtic fiddlers tend to make very little use of vibrato. Melodies are embellished through forms of ornamentation, such as cuts, rolls and a variety of grace notes. Slow airs are occasionally performed, but the style is best known for fast, snappy reels and jigs.
Both libraries come with 4 performance modes, customizable double stops, adjustable bow attacks and rebowing options and more. They also feature the TACT articulation control system plus an 8-slot FX rack.
The Traveler Series fiddles are available for $89 USD each.
Also recorded in Dublin, Bodhrans & Bones brings the sounds of 6 unique traditional Irish bodhrans.
Each was sampled with 5 stick types at a variety of locations on the drum, with sound design controls, multiple dynamic layers and round robins. You can change pitch and dampen realistically on the fly and a bones patch is included with 2 sets of bones with hits and rolls. The library also features the robust 8-slot FX rack.
The bodhran is an Irish frame drum with an open side so one hand can be placed against the inside of the head to control the pitch and timbre. It is struck either with the bare hand or a variety of “tippers” and is said to have been developed as the “poor man’s tambourine” by farmers who couldn’t afford the metal.
Bones are an instrument often used in traditional Irish folk music, as well as Bluegrass and zydeco. It consists of a pair of animal bones or pieces of wood played by holding them between the fingers and moving the wrist in such a way that they knock against each other.
Bodhrans & Bones costs $49 USD. It is free with a purchase of both fiddles until January 27th.
More information: Red Room Audio
